


untitled

by OneWhoTurns



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Rp starter, Supernatural Elements, emsider undertones, god-baiting, prologue to a larger work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 18:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16270307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneWhoTurns/pseuds/OneWhoTurns
Summary: AKA "Emily finds a shrine"





	untitled

Most of Emily’s nighttime wanderings were scored by the river and the rats. Not the four-legged kind - at least, not often - but it was rare to find a good man wandering about in the wee hours. Sometimes there were boats, in some parts of the city the soft murmur of guards’ voices. Most often, once she began to move amongst the more residential buildings of her city, leaping roof-to-roof, tumbling and vaulting and grappling for a handhold, she heard very little beyond the snoring of the inhabitants. But tonight, as she moved further from the river, winding her way from main boulevard to tiny alleys, she heard something else. No, not heard: felt.

She paused where she stood, shaking out her hands and glancing over them for tears in her gloves, maybe something that would be making her skin buzz anxiously. She was all in one piece, so it wasn’t some bodily response, and while she felt the standard adrenaline of her nightly ventures, she wasn’t particularly on-edge (though the longer she heard the eerie hum, the more it nagged at her). She took a few steps first one direction, then the other, casting about for where the sound was coming from. _Sound_. That wasn’t the word for it, though. It was beyond just the dull thrum reminiscent of devices fueled by whale oil. There was something else to it, as well. Like wind chimes, maybe. But not just the soft tinkle of tuned pipes, more like… like glass and tin cans, softly clinking against each other with an underlying melody, a sound like the wind itself, that raised goosebumps on her skin. Despite the unsettling feeling, it wasn’t exactly unpleasant.

Finally Emily thought she’d managed to pinpoint the direction it was coming from. She took a moment to listen for voices or snores before she made her move. Another vault between buildings, dropping down from a roof and catching herself on the ledge of a window below, and she pulled herself into the room that seemed to echo with the ethereal humming. Silently pushing past the heavy drapes that shrouded the window - too sumptuous for this part of the city, she realized curiously - Emily faltered. The room was bathed in violet light. Her hand left the weapon she’d instinctually reached for at her side, instead closing the heavy curtains behind her before she took a few silent steps further into the room.

The light came from purple lamps placed almost haphazardly around the room, with most arrayed around a structure she could only describe as a shrine. Jagged boards burst from a central platform, a couple thrusting nearly to the ceiling, parts wrapped in twisted barbed wire, making for an intimidating tableau. The noise - the feeling - seemed to be coming from this. The soft chimes wafted from the violet lamps, but the humming, the buzz on her skin, came from the shrine itself. No, not just the shrine. As Emily padded closer, she felt herself reaching out, eyes bright, fingers itching to touch the source of the eerie vibrations.

Questing hands lifted the thick, plate-like rune, running delicate fingers over every detail. It looked… somehow familiar. Tracing the symbol carved into what must be whale bone, it hit her: in the tower. The tower by the Hound Pits Pub, where she’d sheltered so briefly during the Rat Plague. She’d found something like this - almost identical, even - and it had given her nightmares for days before she finally got rid of it. She could still remember the solemn look on her father’s face when he’d taken it from her offering hands without a word.

Her lips curved, wryly. The Rat Plague was a distant memory now, all twisted up and warped by time and childish fears. She hefted the disk in her hands casually. It wasn’t so scary now, was it? Even the hum had died down once she’d touched it - the dry, chalky texture of it still somewhat discomfiting. But nothing she couldn’t handle. Just a bit of heretical arts and crafts, wasn’t it? She let out a huff of derisive laughter. To think, how terrified she’d been as a child… A spark lit in her eyes. The boogeyman of her youth couldn’t scare her now.

She turned to the rest of the room, gaze scanning the otherworldly lamps and the unintelligible scrawlings that littered the walls. She was reminded of her teenage years. The urban myths and ghost stories, being dared to chant some schoolyard summons in a graveyard. That time she and Alexi, no older than 14, had held hands around a candle and softly repeated the singsong rhyme of Granny Rags, their voices rising over the requisite three repetitions, and the tense pause once they’d completed it. And the screams and giggles that had burst forth when adjusting themselves had made a floorboard creak. Childish fears and childish stories.

Fingers still idly tracing the symbol, Emily smirked at the empty room, eyes roaming the ceiling and feet pacing the floor as she whispered. “Oh mister Outsider…” Her voice was that same singsong tone, but not the excitedly terrified voice of a teenager. She spoke a little louder, the amusement clear in her sarcastic tone. “Come on, ‘God of the Void’...” It was thrilling, tempting fate like this.

The old superstitions sent a shiver down her back as she paused. Nothing was happening. Of course it wasn’t; it didn’t work like that. The Outsider wasn’t a _person,_ it was an _idea_. An amorphous concept scapegoated by the Abbey, meant to scare children - and adults - into doing the right thing. Only mad people ever claimed to see the Outsider. And she wasn’t mad. So she wouldn’t see him. Her grin flashed wolfishly in the lamplight, emboldened. She turned back to face the shrine once more. Her fingers ran carefully over the wooden frame, enjoying the way her hair stood on end. “Your Empress summons you…” A memory flashed through her mind - a snapshot from her childhood nightmares - and she added, in a dark whisper, “...my black-eyed boy…”

She closed her eyes, as if she might channel something, imagining she might once more feel that hum that had drawn her in, or some wind off the Void. If she tried hard enough she could pretend there was a breath in the air, a heat spreading from the base of her spine…

“ _Shit-_ ” Her eyes snapped open and she hissed in pain, drawing her hand away from where she’d pricked it on the barbed wire that twined around the shrine. She stuck the bleeding finger in her mouth, pressing her tongue against the cut before she could think of how that likely wasn’t a good idea in this part of town. She looked around again. The spell was broken -- if it had ever been there to begin with. No more hum in the air; even the lamps were silent. She glanced at her wound with annoyance, then glared back at the shrine. _What am I doing?_ This was ridiculous. She was too old for something this silly. With not a small amount of spite, she secured the rune to take with her, and sent one final irritated glance over her shoulder before she pushed back the curtains again. She had to return to Dunwall Tower, but she’d be taking a souvenir.

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually the starter for an rp project between myself and Hirvitank (incredibly self-indulgent and delightful). I may post the rest eventually, at which point I may be deleting this (and adjusting the rating to something more fitting the rest of the work, which may have eventually been influenced by kinktober I mean who knows), but for now here's the opener.


End file.
